By Jason Apuzzo. THE PITCH: Marvel Comics rolls out an old-school take on the Captain America comic book series, bringing the revered character to life by way of depicting his origins fighting Nazis in World War II … all as a set up for next summer’s mega-superhero go-round, The Avengers.
THE SKINNY: Captain America makes for reasonably pleasant, unstressful summer entertainment, but Marvel takes no chances here – literally, none whatsoever – in picking the hardy Captain’s enemies, so as to guarantee that absolutely nobody gets offended by this film … not even Germans. Although Captain America has been around for some 70 years, fighting everything from Russian communists to terrorists to mad supercomputers, Marvel has him back fighting Nazis again – technically, rogue Nazis (the usual ones weren’t good enough?) – as if America hasn’t had any new enemies since that time. Origin-story purists will be thrilled; everyone else will likely yawn.
WHAT WORKS: • From leads Chris Evans as Steve Rogers/Captain America and Hayley Atwell as Peggy Carter, to veteran stars like Tommy Lee Jones, Hugo Weaving and Stanley Tucci in supporting roles, the cast here creates characters who believably inhabit the World War II milieu – even if their roles rarely rise above cliché.
• The production design and visual FX are sumptuous, presenting a highly romanticized vision of the World War II era – not unlike something out of Raiders of the Lost Ark, The Rocketeer or Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow.
• Much effort is taken to distinguish Captain America’s regular-guy, shrimpy-kid-from-Brooklyn origins from the usual ‘Chosen One’/supernatural boy-toy so common in comic book fare. This lends the film an unmistakably old-fashioned American vibe.
Continue reading Winning Yesterday’s Battles: LFM Mini-Review of Captain America: The First Avenger
